In Patients with Minor Beta-Thalassemia, Cognitive Performance Is Related to Length of Education, But not to Minor Beta-Thalassemia or Hemoglobin Levels

Objective:; Thalassemia is one of the most frequent monogenic disorders, leading to impairment in the maturation and survival of red blood cells. The question examined here is whether, and if so, to what extent, people with beta-thalassemia might also be impaired in their cognitive functioning. Previous results in adults with beta-thalassemia showed cognitive impairment when compared to healthy controls. However, length of education was never taken into consideration as a possible confounder. Accordingly, the aim of the present study was to assess people with minor beta-thalassemia and compare them to healthy controls, while controlling for length of education.; Method; :; A total of 25 adults (mean age: 29.36 years; 56% females) with beta-thalassemia and 25 healthy controls (mean age: 27.84 years; 72% females) took part in this cross-sectional study. They underwent cognitive testing (executive functions, attention, working memory), and their haemoglobin levels were assessed.; Results:; Cognitive performance did not significantly differ between patients with minor beta-thalassemia and healthy controls. Irrespective of group, higher cognitive performance was strongly associated with time spent in education. No gender differences were observed.; Conclusion:; Compared to healthy controls, cognitive performance was not impaired among patients with minor beta-thalassemia when length of education was introduced as a further co-variate. In both patients with minor beta-thalassemia and healthy controls, higher cognitive performance was associated with time spent for education. Health professionals should inform patients with minor beta-thalassemia that cognitive performance is related to the length of education and not to the health status of minor beta-thalassemia per se

Effectiveness of Mindfulness Intervention on Cognitive Functions: A Meta-analysis of Mindfulness Studies

Background: The experience of cognitive deficits is common among patients with degenerative and psychiatric disorders. Objective: The present study aimed to evaluate the effect of the empirical literature of mindfulness intervention on cognitive functions. Methods: This study was conducted in June 2020 by using the scientific records were retrieved by a systematic search of several bibliographic databases on the Medline, Scopus, ISI Web of Sciences, Google scholar database from 2000 to 2020 for testing the effect of mindfulness intervention on cognitive functions. For data analysis CMA2 software were used. Heterogeneity assessed by Cochran’s Q statistics test. Publication Bias assessed by Orwin fail safe N, Begg’s method kendall’s Tau, Egger’s method intercept and funnel plot. Results: from 17 initial studies, 28 effect sizes were calculated. Among the 28 effect sizes, 6 indicators were negative and 22 indicators were positive. key results from the meta-analysis, Compared to healthy controls showed that people were receive mindfulness intervention significantly improved in working memory and attention function, with this enhance medium magnitude (Hedges’ g = 0.32, 0.35 respectively, see Figure 2). There was no significant improve by use mindfulness intervention on executive function. Conclusions: The results prove the initial evidence that mindfulness intervention can improve some neurocognitive processing such as attention function and working memor

Sociocultural Attitudes towards Appearance, Self-Esteem and Symptoms of Body - Dysmorphic Disorders among Young Adults

Background:; Beauty and an attractive body shape are particularly important during early adulthood, as both are related to greater mating success, positive social feedback, and higher self-esteem. The media may further influence common features of beauty. We tested whether higher body-dysmorphic disorder (BDD) scores were associated with sociocultural attitudes towards appearance. Additionally, we expected that a link between higher BDD scores and higher perceived media pressure would be mediated by lower self-esteem (SE).; Method:; 350 young Iranian adults (mean age: 24.17 years; 76.9% females) took part in the study. Participants completed questionnaires covering sociodemographic data, sociocultural attitudes towards appearances, and SE, while experts rated participants for symptoms of body dysmorphic disorders.; Results:; Higher BDD scores were associated with higher scores for sociocultural attitudes towards appearance, while SE was not associated with BDD or sociocultural attitudes towards appearance. Higher scores for sociocultural attitudes towards appearance and media pressure predicted higher BDD scores, while SE had no influence.; Conclusion:; Among young Iranian adults, sociocultural attitudes towards appearances and BDD scores, as rated by experts', were related, while SE was not. The shared variance between symptoms of BDD and sociocultural attitudes towards appearance was low, suggesting that other factors such as mating and career concerns together with social feedback might be more important in explaining symptoms of body dysmorphic disorders

Executive functions and information processing in patients with type 2 diabetes in comparison to pre-diabetic patients

BACKGROUND: Diabetes is associated with cognitive decline or dementia. The purpose of this study was to assess the executive functions and information processing in patients with type 2diabetes in comparison to pre-diabetic patients and normal subjects in Endocrine and Metabolism Research Center of Isfahan City from April to July 2011. METHODS: The sample consisted of 32 patients with type 2 diabetes, 28 pre-diabetic patients and 30 healthy individuals. Executive functions were assessed by Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). Information processing was assessed by Paced Auditory Serial Addition Test (PASAT) and sub tests of Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R). RESULTS: There was a significant difference among 3 groups, after the variables of age, sex and academic status were controlled (p ≤ 0.001). The pairwise comparisons of executive functions among three groups suggest a significant difference between diabetic and normal groups in WCST (perseveration) p = 0.018, and significant difference between diabetic and pre-diabetic patient in WCST (perseveration) p = 0.019. But there was no difference between three groups in WCST (category) and WCST (conceptual responses). The pairwise comparisons of information processing among three groups, suggest a significant difference between diabetic and normal groups in PASAT3". PASAT2", and Symbol coding (P = 0.003, P = 0.009, and P = 0.001, respectively). There was a significant correlation between demographic variable (FBS, HbA1c) and Symbol coding p = 0.05, p = 0.01 respectively) and significant correlation between (cholesterol) and WCST (conceptual responses) p = 0.05. The other variables were not correlated. CONCLUSION: There were significant differences in executive function and information processing in patients with type 2 diabetic and normal individuals. Thus, monitoring neuropsychological status besides controlling levels of blood sugar in these patients is important

In patients suffering from idiopathic central serous chorioretinopathy, anxiety scores are higher than in healthy controls, but do not vary according to sex or repeated central serous chorioretinopathy

Idiopathic central serous chorioretinopathy (CSCR) is a relatively common ophthalmic disorder characterized by the development of a serous detachment of the sensory retina. Psychophysiological factors may trigger or maintain CSCR, though, surprisingly, the association between CSCR and anxiety has yet to be studied. The aims of the present study were threefold: to determine whether 1) Iranian patients with CSCR have higher scores for anxiety, 2) anxiety is lower, if CSCR has been experienced twice, and whether 3) anxiety scores differ between sexes.; A total of 30 patients with CSCR and 30 healthy age-and sex-matched controls took part in the study. A brief face-to-face interview was conducted covering demographic variables and history and occurrence of CSCR and assessing anxiety.; Compared to healthy controls, anxiety was significantly higher in both first-time and second-time CSCR patients. In CSCR patients, anxiety scores did not differ between sexes.; Higher anxiety scores were observed in Iranian patients with CSCR, irrespective of whether this was the first or second occurrence of CSCR. This suggests there is no psychological adaptation in terms of reduced anxiety among patients with repeated CSCR

SandTrap: Securing JavaScript-driven Trigger-Action Platforms

Trigger-Action Platforms (TAPs) seamlessly connect a wide variety of otherwise unconnected devices and services, ranging from IoT devices to cloud services and social networks. TAPs raise critical security and privacy concerns because a TAP is effectively a “person-in-the-middle” between trigger and action services. Third-party code, routinely deployed as “apps” on TAPs, further exacerbates these concerns. This paper focuses on JavaScript-driven TAPs. We show that the popular IFTTT and Zapier platforms and an open-source alternative Node-RED are susceptible to attacks ranging from exfiltrating data from unsuspecting users to taking over the entire platform. We report on the changes by the platforms in response to our findings and present an empirical study to assess the implications for Node-RED. Motivated by the need for a secure yet flexible way to integrate third-party JavaScript apps, we propose SandTrap, a novel JavaScript monitor that securely combines the Node.js vm module with fully structural proxy-based two-sided membranes to enforce fine-grained access control policies. To aid developers, SandTrap includes a policy generation mechanism. We instantiate SandTrap to IFTTT, Zapier, and Node-RED and illustrate on a set of benchmarks how SandTrap enforces a variety of policies while incurring a tolerable runtime overhead

Securing Node-RED Applications

Trigger-Action Platforms (TAPs) play a vital role in fulfilling the promise of the Internet of Things (IoT) by seamlessly connecting otherwise unconnected devices and services. While enabling novel and exciting applications across a variety of services, security and privacy issues must be taken into consideration because TAPs essentially act as persons-in-the-middle between trigger and action services. The issue is further aggravated since the triggers and actions on TAPs are mostly provided by third parties extending the trust beyond the platform providers. Node-RED, an open-source JavaScript-driven TAP, provides the opportunity for users to effortlessly employ and link nodes via a graphical user interface. Being built upon Node.js, third-party developers can extend the platform’s functionality through publishing nodes and their wirings, known as flows. This paper proposes an essential model for Node-RED, suitable to reason about nodes and flows, be they benign, vulnerable, or malicious. We expand on attacks discovered in recent work, ranging from exfiltrating data from unsuspecting users to taking over the entire platform by misusing sensitive APIs within nodes. We present a formalization of a runtime monitoring framework for a core language that soundly and transparently enforces fine-grained allowlist policies at module-, API-, value-, and context-level. We introduce the monitoring framework for Node-RED that isolates nodes while permitting them to communicate via well-defined API calls complying with the policy specified for each node